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Regular Cruise Control and Engine Braking

5K views 10 replies 6 participants last post by  DaMiFo 
#1 ·
With my FuSpo, I'd say Fuel Mileage is on par (maybe slightly better) than what I expected. Took a mini 600 mile road trip from Long Island to Lake George over the weekend. A little over 2k miles on the car now.

Around 75MPH +/- cruise control most of the way, I averaged about 26.5 MPG.

The only thing I'm not fond of with cruise control is the Engine Braking at exactly 5 mph over the limit. Wish there was a way I could change it to 10 MPH over the limit.

There were too many quick ups and downs on the hills and I feel I could have gotten slightly better gas mileage with a 10 MPH over set speed. For instance, car performed some engine braking down a hill, but it had to punch the gas 5 seconds later to go up another hill. If there was a 10 MPH limit, the car wouldn't have had to punch the gas to go back up the hill.

I guess I could have turned cruise control off, maybe it's just not meant for the hill-type scenario I was in. Though, I wonder how ACC would have fared in this situation.
 
#2 ·
I know what you mean, and it is annoying to me too. I get why they do it, and I do like it at certain times, but you do save a little more fuel by just letting the car speed up down the hill so you have to accelerate less. I tested this a while ago with my Focus, and got noticeably better MPG (about 3-4MPG) by NOT using cruise control.

I wish they let is change it as well - 5MPH for traveling on holiday weekends when the cops are ticketing, 10MPH for the rest of the time. That would be great!
 
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#3 ·
I found that my adaptive cruise held the speed to within 1mph up and down hills. It was a bit weird at first feeling the car use downshifting, engine braking and application of the brakes to hold speed on steep grades, but it worked so much better then the hill decent programing from years ago.
 
#4 ·
Wow is yours really that accurate? And you mean without a car being in front of you, I'm assuming, right? Radar cruise is the one thing I wish I had, I just didn't want the entire package with the irritating front park sensors.
 
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#5 ·
Living in Colorado we do a lot of mountain driving. And the engine braking and downshifting is really noticeable. I think it keeps the car to within 2-3 MPH of the cruise setting. No question you are giving up some MPG from less coasting on the downhill. But in mountain driving here, it is a lot of work and thought to keep downhill speeds from throwing you to a firey death off the side of the mountian. So I appreciate the car taking that chore over. No worrying about overusing and overheating the brakes, etc. And if the tranny wears out, well that is what the extended warranty is for.
 
#8 ·
Interesting point, which was my other concern. Tranny/engine wearing out due to Cruise Control. There's no disclaimers anywhere for excessive wear using Cruise Control (at least my skimming the manual didn't see any), and you'd think the auto manufacturers wouldn't put this "feature" in the car if harmed it. It does sound like one of those things that will wear over time, just adding more strain for right after the 5 year power train or 8 year ESP mark hits.

I mean, jeezeee. Some hills I was hovering around 4k RPM.

I suppose bottom line is just to not use it excessively on hills. I feel like I'd rather pump and wear the brakes, since those are cheaper to replace down the line
 
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